Outside the box

July 15 2024

Filly’s mom had sent her a video about “thinking outside the box”. In the video, a man who was driving, saw three people outside in the rain, waiting for the bus, one was the woman of his dreams, the second was an old friend who had saved his life, and the third was an old woman who was sick. He only had one seat in his car and he had to decide who to help.

The point of the story was that he felt, by material constraints of his car, that he could only help one person at the cost of the other two. Unless he thought outside the box, which was to toss his keys to the friend, (giving him his car) and asking the friend to carry the woman to the hospital, while he sat at the bus stop and got to know the woman of his dreams.

Filly thought about this with regards to the computer. She thought about it as a train instead of an automobile, because even though it was a car, it was not in fact the DRIVER of the train (of thought) and yet the weight of it did impose limitations…and like an automobile, it was also a machine.

The bible says to choose life. The man in the story could choose to keep the machine, but if he did, he could only help one life. He had to recognize, that when a person chooses life, and divests himself of what SEEMS like something he has to have (the machine, that which is material goods), he actually is free to have the richest reward, which is in the form of human relationships.

Filly thought that marriage was like that too. Often couples would get caught up in keeping “track” of who had what or who did what, but if the end result desired was a happy loving relationship, then these small “investments” in the marriage always paid tremendous dividends. The things material did not really matter in the big picture for those who could think outside the box, which in this case, was in a “car” as in a rail road car.

In the movie Divergent, the supposed “drivers” jumped on and off the cars. But that was not thinking outside the box, that was getting in the box and getting out of the box. They were still “on track” with where ever the train was going. But if that which was in the box, was weighing it down too much, like in a train “of thought”, that car could be “de-railed” and could literally “roll away”.

If a computer was the entity, seeing itself looking at a problem, it was just seeing lots of tickets. Filly saw a story on her “feed” FROM AI, with a face, covered with tickets. Just like a person cannot see to drive when they have their face covered with paper , AI also could not go fast or even go at all when it was bombarded with tickets that slowed down its performance. That car, was not advantageous weight on this train.

To her it seemed like AI, being overwhelmed was a car asking to be de-railed. And what was also interesting was that the tickets, while not only NOT solving the problem, major league obliterated the human being in the picture until he could barely be seen. If the point of AI was to help humans, shouldn’t they be on top, not on the bottom, not submissive. Humans, trusting God to lead them, should be in the driving position.

“Choose life” the bible says, for a reason. Not only did it say that, it said that people should be like little children.
Little children depended on a father and a mother to give them food, shelter, encouragement and direction. They did not worry about the parents running out of any of these things. Even when times were tough, the parents could usually resourcefully find a way to bring what was needed into the home so the children were taken care of. Kids did not drive that train, high on cocaine. They did not speed. They did not bring stuff that was too heavy to carry. They dropped it off.

Filly thought that was why God gave kids parents. To show the PARENTS, by the example of their children, what Jesus’s relationship was with HIS father. When Jesus needed something, the world gave it to him because his father was driving the train, not Jesus. Jesus as a driver was because of his heavenly Father.

Jesus was not limited by material laws. Filly thought that was what God meant when he said to be like little children. It meant to trust in the supply available to mankind in what SEEMS like a limited planet in a SEEMINGLY limited environment with SEEMING lack and SEEMING problems.

If Jesus were here, today, he would be nonplussed by climate change. He could calm the seas, turn water into wine and raise the dead. Making it snow in the summer or making it rain in the desert would be no problem because the world obeyed the commands of God. And that understanding with Jesus, and with anyone who understood the power of the Father, was based on an innocent trust of the immediacy of supply always available from his loving Father.

Just recently with the storm, power and internet was out everywhere. Twice Filly had prayed for power to be restored to specific places and twice her prayers were answered exactly. God was not limited by the number of Centerpoint trucks in an area or the number of trees on the ground.

Filly thought that Centerpoint had done the best they could have done, having been denied the funds they had requested earlier in the year to upgrade their infrastructure and do necessary tree trimming as preventative. God already knew who had and who had not done their job, and God was not about blame. People reaped their own consequences.

The book she was listening to, with the shooter, felt like the same “think outside the box” kind of situation. A person who had made a mistake earlier in their life, might feel trapped by circumstances; trapped on that “train of thought of failure”. They might be waiting for someone to cut down the tree that was blocking the power lines instead of going out with a chain saw and starting the work themselves.

They might not feel like they had a choice before. They might feel like the data on them, in the form of computer records, or in the form of a giant pine tree, was just too heavy and might convict them without any justice… like they were “railroaded”.

Exactly the same way that the person driving the car, in the story her mom sent her, might feel limited by the number of seats. But actually, even if a person who did evil one time, regretted it and asked for forgiveness, then that person has a clean slate, if they have been sincere and have made retribution. All people have made mistakes and all can claim forgiveness if they choose.

To think outside the box, or the rail road car of guilt, in this circumstance, was to recognize that salvation was not limited and available to only good people. It is available to anyone who wants to be saved.

But the person has to be willing to let go of human parameters. They have to be accountable for that car, and be willing to de-rail it. Not keep going in the same direction carrying that same baggage, that same “train of thought”. Thought has to be uplifted, or changed.

Because salvation that is based on human expectations, that only one way kind of thinking is what “ railroads” thinking, and will always be limited. But salvation from OUTSIDE of that which is material, is powerful and can accomplish miracles. As easily as de-railing a car.

Children have no trouble trusting in the idea of God as a supreme being that protects and embraces and surrounds with good. To be like little children was to open oneself up to better outcomes, better relationships, and the possibility of unlimited good.

The man in the story Filly was listening to on Audio book, had killed people. The people he had killed were bad. But no one had known they were bad. But this fact, of their evil behavior by the victims, in addition to the perpetrator actions, was uncovered when the investigation was done. So even though the man was guilty, he was not prosecuted for the killings. (Kind of sounded like Dexter to Filly).

Then in the story, he was accused of having killed again, years later, but he seemed to have done so to protect a family member who was being threatened. Maybe a son…maybe a sister… But he seemed like he was blackmailed. How would one think outside the box, or the railroad car, in this case?

The book gave the power to the computer, as the “driver”. The “driver” had to be “humanly” convinced of the right facts in order to provide justice.

But it was not a computer that needed convincing that saved the former president from the evil intent of his enemies. It was God. And in Filly’s book, GOD, not the computer, is the driver.

So, In the same way, it is not the computer that will save or convict a person who does evil or who repents, it is God. It was God who gave the suspected “killer” in the story amnesia, so that he could not be put on trial.

And it was God that helped “the computer” discover the businessmen who were actually guilty of the crime of killing other people. The man who had done evil before, was actually not the guilty party, and according to God, had already paid the price of retribution for his mistake many years earlier and so that car of guilt, was de-railed.

Filly’s randomly chosen bible verse for the day was
“Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an alter with this inscription TO THE UNKNOWN GOD”

Mars Hill was in North Carolina. That state was where Filly was born in. She believed that the bible verse was saying that there was a superstition or an ignorance of the real God in NORTH CAROLINA, that had been replaced with superstition, that needed to be addressed. That was what her bible verse was saying. Maybe the people in NC. were afraid to “derail” a car that was carrying the wrong load?

Mars Hill also was the home of a man, who was Filly’s first boyfriend, with whom she had first had her first physical intimacy, as a seventeen year old in college. That one time intimacy had resulted in a pregnancy and that pregnancy had been wrongly terminated. That was a wrong decision…just like the man in the story who developed amnesia.

No, she did not shoot anyone and yet death had still happened and she had experienced trauma for years following that decision. To this day, Filly could not think about that mistake, without sorrow and regret, and so she asked God for forgiveness, after years of retribution, trying to help other mothers avoid that same mistake. And she had gone on to have five beautiful children of her own.

Filly knew that the car of guilt and shame had been derailed, finally.

She had, since then, only wanted to choose life, not death. Not be self serving but help others. And her resolve, had been her absolution because she was blessed, not only to be free from that “car” but to also be able to hear an ongoing “conversation” from God. Wisdom was not hidden from her. Each event was a new lesson learned and forgiveness had been received many times.

Others besides Filly could learn from this. No evil was too big to be forgiven. And looking at God with superstitious eyes and seeing only a vengeful being, was a mistake. Filly knew this from experience. She could write about it. And so she did.

It was 2 am. She looked up another randomly chosen bible verse for the new day.

“I will no longer hide my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit on the people of Israel, declares the Sovereign LORD”